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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22917013">Under Amber</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Volantis/pseuds/Volantis'>Volantis</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Halo (Video Games) &amp; Related Fandoms</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Ferrets being the best kids, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hallucinations, Hospitalization, Major Character Injury, Minor Original Character(s), Post Halo: Retribution, Recovery, They haven't seen each other since, Veta missing Fred</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 16:21:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,344</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22917013</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Volantis/pseuds/Volantis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She would be leaving soon. So soon. </p><p>Veta knew that this visit would likely be the last for quite a while.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Frederic-104/Veta Lopis, Gamma Company &amp; Veta Lopis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Sun Gone Dim</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>JAN 30 2021: Just a heads up - this fic will be getting a huge overhaul over the coming days. It may result in something close to a total re-write, but also it needs a lot of format editing, general grammar fixes, and to be brought up to snuff with how I currently feel more comfortable writing. If you'd like to save a copy of this original format, please feel free to do so. I plan to have the update edited in over the next couple of days. Thank you for suffering me, friends! 💙 </p><p> </p><p>I hope those who come across this story enjoy it; and I appreciate the time taken. Thank you.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>She would be leaving soon. So soon. </p><p> </p><p>Veta knew that this visit would likely be the last for quite a while. Osman's tone hadn't left a lot of room for interpretation to the contrary. There had hardly been time to process everything - Gao felt entirely lost to her now...she was effectually dead...the nondescript grey uniform she wore still represented a sinking mire of emotions. A lot of pain and confusion to lock away in what will surely culminate as a torrentially unfortunate future reflection. She was so tired of facing devastation alone. She would, as a duty to herself, and to the Gammas who now relied on her to lead them, but it still hurt. She was convinced it always would. That it should.   </p><p>A distant banging thumped from somewhere deeper in the ship, pulling her back from the darkened repose, reminding her of what little time she had left.    <br/>She couldn't step off that Prowler without telling him goodbye. Without thanking him. <br/>As she walked down the corridor to the Silent Joe's Infirmary, an overwhelming scent of dirt and gunpowder filled the hall, even as the hint of clinical sterility became ever more apparent. The mingling...conflicting odors, while evident, somehow didn't seem important. There was a deeper, pressing, sharpness about something more...the air...the <em>lighting</em>. There was an overt brightness to it that she suddenly felt she was hearing more than seeing...a florescent buzzing creeping behind every sight and sound. It permeated the floor and vibrated over her skin.</p><p>She was nervous. There were a handful of reasons why, but it wasn't for any <em>single</em> one of them. Rather, it rest likely amongst the tangled knot looping end over in her chest. How could she address all of these things - <em>any</em> of these things now? There wasn't time...there wasn't words. They certainly existed, but <em>right now</em>...right now, they were written in a language she didn't know how to read. Every step grew lighter - sensations feeling amplified as they dulled - solid bulkhead walls yielded against the smooth, transparent, pane abutting the sliding entrance to the Infirmary, where she stopped. Stood. The ballistic plasteel glass shivered. Faceless personnel milling around beyond the surface...never quite touching. Never looking towards her.  </p><p>Veta tilted her head to the left and listened to the buzzing again. It had grown to a baleful humming that carried itself in a consistent breath...like wind passing beyond an open window. <br/>Distracted by the sound, she never noticed herself crossing the threshold; didn't feel the steps taken beneath her boots. Looking past her right shoulder back towards the door, it stood distant by thirty paces, and steadily began to submerge. </p><p> </p><p>She was in the middle of the room. Just her.  </p><p> </p><p>She turned back to the expanse of the room - it had become filled with smoke. From the blurred right edge of her sight, stood Mark, who seemed to be caught in a temporal anomaly...just reaching the apex of shouldering his BR85 battle rifle, and pulling the trigger in quarter-time - the silence erupted into a heavy metallic ring that reverberated and became trapped. Between blinks, this new reality flashed and rippled...titanium walls skipping into forested wilderness...and back again. A shimmering visage of Olivia imprinted in the space like an after-image for a fraction of second. Reality was as unstable as a dream, and yet Veta walked forward into the wavering landscape carrying no impression of danger. Auxiliary lighting dampened everything in a ghostly amber glow, and coming to a stop, she felt her right palm rest against the lightly starched sheets of his bed. It was quiet again. Veta looked up, and met a deep, clear, ocean gaze - the tangled knot tightened, becoming no more resolved, yet radiated a completing sense of...simplicity. </p><p>An arm of corded steel, belied such gentleness, and warmth, as he cautiously encircled her.  He was also nervous - the sense of such innocent trepidation coming off of this mythic warrior chased a genuine smile over her face; it reached her eyes just as they closed, and she pressed her forehead firmly against the comfortable heat of his chest. The wind outside grew closer, more fervent, and carried an audible bite of resistance, but it did nothing to steal her warmth - it spread. </p><p>A lifetime reflected, lingered, and passed in heartbeats as she held him. She knew it was just a breath of a moment, but she wanted to spend another lifetime to feel it all again. A slow, contented, exhale breezed by her ear, and every calamity she'd ever known disappeared. The purity of her calm was the edge of Nirvana.  </p><p>But, the bed was empty now...tucked neatly together and lacking any...warmth. The walls darkening from sight, and somewhere behind her echoed a clatter - a banging thump that she'd heard sometime before...it felt like months ago. Turning, she saw a helmet that lay discarded on the impossibly white floor - an SPI helmet. Crusted in dirt, sporting the telltale sign of a single large impact to the left temple, the visor spidered. </p><p>Veta inhaled deeply, turning back towards the bed - gone. Not a trace remained; there wouldn't be. </p><p>The flooring cracked and scored, caked in dirt, and oil, and blood. The tangled knot felt present still, but distant, as the core of it's billowing warmth began to cool. The room brightened again, a shock of overwhelming white that lept from every surface; so oppressive, she felt like she was tasting it - it was metallic. Repeated swallows gathering in a thickened film behind her tongue as her breath shortened with each pull. </p><p>The wind was a gale, punctuated by faraway voices screaming incoherent words - no shape or meaning. Veta wanted to shout back, to answer, but the piercing lightening film in her throat lost brilliance, and degraded...coalescing into a shape that grew, and grew, filling her lungs, before flooding, rampant, through every organ. Every artery. Every vein. A mass of ice, and mud, and rotting wood that fed pain to every inch of her. The agony should have wrenched sound from her throat - <em>any sound</em> - but, a fog rolled in. She felt strangely overwhelmed in a blanketed notion of total apathy...for the pain, and for the fear that knelt, coiled, just beyond. </p><p>The wind disappeared. <br/>She wondered if it'd ever actually been there. All thoughts suspended, when the silence unzipped, and rushed back like a tide under softly spoken words that finally broke the surface...</p><p>
  <em>It'll be okay, Mom...</em>
</p><p> </p><p>It took force to break the rough, crusted, seals over her eyelids, but she was rewarded with the tall points of beautiful pine trees, back-lit in dramatic silhouette by the melting amber gradient of Gallant's setting sun. Gallant. A planet largely only occupied by disparate clutches of fanatical Keeper cells. Veta's mind swam in the colours of the sky, as she absently reached for that definitive knowledge. It had been her reason for coming here - she and her Ferret Team. </p><p>The sky was so beautiful...inexplicably so. Like liquid fire opal pouring out of heaven...but she would trade the beauty of it all away for...<br/>...for one more moment at his bedside. For one more shot to wreck a punchline and see him smile. For one more chance to be too afraid to say so many things. <br/>She wondered if he'd ever known how much she wanted...      </p><p>Turning her head to face the voice that'd brought her to the sun, she met a pair of golden chestnut eyes - glassy, and framed under a deeply furrowed brow. Skin smooth between etched scars, and pale...and dirty. </p><p>
  <em>It's going to be okay, Mom...</em>
</p><p> </p><p>This whole time she'd been moving - quickly. Running? Her head turned to face forward, eyesight catching up a full second later, and affording her the blurred sight of her bent knees. The surrounding world at eye-level was traveling by too quickly to focus on, but ran perpendicular to her gaze. Seeking answers, her head lolled back to the left until it met resistance; heavy, but metered, breathing overhead. A strong arm at her back - another under her legs - and her right arm gathered over her abdomen, where the movement of her fingers felt sticky and, somehow, hollow; like the limb was made of styrofoam, coated in grease and honey. </p><p>Veta reached with her left hand, up higher...higher...and carded her fingers back through his wavy, brown hair - just along his temple. Her armored hand was blasted carbon black. His hair was wet. </p><p>"...it's so long...it's gotten so long..."<br/>She didn't immediately recognize her own voice. <br/> <br/>"I know. I'll get it cut, okay? You can be there too - to tell them how you want it, okay?"<br/>He sounded under pressure. </p><p>Letting her wrist go limp, it rested bent against his shoulder, as her whole left side seemed to sink. She felt his grip tighten.  </p><p>"No. I like it...it's handsome, Ash. Just...run a comb through it..."</p><p>He was looking at her again - eyes curved slightly in a happy almond shape...but his brow still tightly knit together, betraying the fleeting glimmer of levity. She rolled her eyes back to memorize the sky...and closed them.</p><p> </p><p>They weren't running anymore; her back was flat against a hardened surface and everything was in motion. Ash was talking, but every word was carried away in an rushing current of howling wind and gnashing gunfire.  </p><p>The oppressive chill crept up through her rib cage, and laid bare it's final demands, having offered her the graceful mercy of those last moments of lucidity. A rail of tremors preceded needles of what she knew should be pain, but they arrived instead as little more than a disembodied vibration, traveling up her thighs, carrying away any remaining physical perception with them as they ascended. The cold water rose above her head, and all sound disappeared - the trembling continued... </p><p> </p><p>...and ended. </p><p>-----</p>
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. What Remains</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Oblivion proved to be far more riotous than Veta would have expected, pulling the dark apart. The experience was inundating - unrelenting bursts of broken imagery set to a cacophonous score, with all the disconnected snapshots degrading away quicker than they could be fully realized. Fragile strips of photo negatives, hundreds of years old, dissolving away in sunlight. <br/>Deciphering fragmented information on the fringes of a collapsing mind was a fool's errand. The shifting flow felt incomprehensible. Identifiable objects, for sure, but she lacked the power to process the context - lines of fencing...decaying concrete...a sloping steel wing...</p><p>Whining noises punching through - high pitched...spooling; it stuttered, like a corrupted recording. Pausing and overlapping, over and again. </p><p>Another flare of white light.<br/>Grey titanium. </p><p>A blue glove.</p><p><br/>Warmth began to return. </p><p> </p><p>-----</p><p><br/>Sounds crept in first. Dampened murmuring, but it seemed...<em>real</em>. </p><p>Maybe minutes had passed, maybe just seconds...maybe more like days. Time was too complicated a concept to a brain floating in narcotics - but a second sense arrived, ushering in the tinny scent of antiseptic and alcohol. </p><p>Lightening struck, and painful barbs lit up across the entirety of Veta's body, rippling in a wake of teeth that came to focus in long bands across her scalp. Her lips parted to pull in a dry, hurried, breath and the pressure in those hot jaws seemed to tighten...and tighten. That waiting, coiled, fear finally drew back - and <em>pounced</em>. <br/>Her eyes opened. </p><p>Blurred ceiling tiles stared back a moment too long, until her eyes broke away to search the surrounding. Heavy halos of glaring light encircled everything, drowning the room in a thickened haze. The ragged edge of her breathing filled the space; she couldn't move her arms...couldn't move her waist...a monitor beeped...a pump was whirring...and nobody was near. <br/>Nobody was there. </p><p>One hitched, splintered, breath brought it all down - hot, stinging, tears welled in her eyes, and they spilled over with no effort to contain them.<br/>How long had it been since she'd allowed herself to cry? As she lay alone, she realized how unconcerned she was about the volume of her grief. </p><p>-----</p><p>She was waking up...again; no recollection of when the previous day had ended. Or was it the same day? <br/>An important change had happened - she wasn't alone. Standing by the door, listening carefully to a matriarchal woman in a white and grey coat, was Olivia - her left arm sealed in a cast from the elbow down. Despite it, she appeared to be as strong and steady as ever. Veta watched as the conversation culminated; a brief and amiable hand placed on the older woman's bicep - it was gentle and socially appropriate for the moment. Veta wanted to smile...her Ferrets were learning so much. <br/>She still had so much more to teach them - she would be there for it. For them. </p><p>-----</p><p> </p><p>"So, really, it's more because of the skull fracture than the gunshot wounds. I mean...ballistic wounds aren't ideal - they're <strong>bad</strong>, <em>obviously</em> - but they're just worried about...you know, your brain. There was a lot of bleeding..."</p><p>The Gammas had come to sit with her religiously the last couple of days; Ash was seated in a chair next to her bed - he'd won it in a game of rock, paper, scissors. <br/>Mark and Olivia sat on the floor, working away on laptops. Military bureaucracy did not bother itself with recognizing the inherent limitations of Medical Absence on agents who were theoretically already dead.</p><p>She'd only learned about the extent of her injuries yesterday evening while recovering from surgery - a third surgery. Dr. Ferrin had felt she was cognizant enough to manage consultation; the older woman had been patient...speaking evenly...repeating or explaining when asked. No hint of pity or undo carefulness in her dusky voice. Though she had listened intently as the doctor spoke, Veta knew her gaze had wandered to the carefully groomed swaths of grey hair at the woman's temples several times.<br/>Reminders of him were everywhere. </p><p>After Ferrin had left, she'd taken time to quietly mull every detail over a second, third, and sixth time. <br/>This last procedure had been to extract the remaining fragments of over-expanded shredder rounds and ceramic remnants still embedded in her body. </p><p>On Gallant, she'd sustained a glancing swipe from the curled fist of a Jiralhanae - the blow connected with her left temple, indenting her helmet, and shattering the visor. The helmet bore nearly six and half centimeters of intrusion...the depressed skull fracture had initiated a steady bleed; the increasing intracranial pressure that resulted had been of greatest concern. The pulverized pieces of visor that had glittered her eyes had been of lesser urgency. <br/>Adding insult to injury - rather, <em>injury</em> to injury - she was simultaneously struck by three shredder rounds, fired at extreme proximity. They had struck her chest plate, the SPI giving way to the piercing rounds as they drilled past the ceramic and cored into her right hip and mid-torso before bursting - the shot that struck her in the collar had been <em>lucky</em>; it passed through.<br/>The other two, undeterred, had paid in full. For her trouble, she'd earned a ricochet that lacerated her right kidney, and punctured a lung which shrunk back into it's plural space as the newly torn pocket had filled with blood.  <br/><strong>Lucky</strong>, Ferrin had said. The collar had been a through and through, but it still proved itself well as another bleeding hole. </p><p><br/>"Can you believe it - Baby Dragon kicked my report back for a <strong>single </strong>misspelling. That is neurotic. It was <em>tenebrous</em>. That's a difficult word."   <br/>Olivia's voice hazily pulled her from her recollection. </p><p>"Just say <em>'couldn't see it'</em>. Why're you getting so fancy with it, Professor?" <br/>Olivia punching Mark in the shoulder with her good right hand cleared the haze and Veta smiled as she lightly admonished her. </p><p><br/>She'd been at her most lucid this morning when the young Ferrets had arrived, and that clarity had come hand in hand with the waiting pain. The thought that the Gammas somehow improved their combat prowess under similar conditions had nauseated her terribly...but, she'd kept those feelings to herself while Olivia tied her hair back, wiping her mouth with a damp cloth after the vomiting stopped. <br/>Mark put a straw in her water cup after he'd spilled on her last time. <br/>Ash read her all her pending intranet messages - the ones he could access. </p><p>The charge nurse chased her Ferrets away at 2200, checked her lines, urged her to get some sleep, and closed the door behind him; the room dimmed, but lay bathed in the gentle illumination of her guardian monitor playing nightlight. <br/>She was grateful for it...pitch darkness still had a nasty habit of taking her too far back, into haunted places in her memories.<br/>   <br/>When she was alone, she read the rest of Olivia's after-action report. </p><p>After she'd went down, the Jiralhanae was dispatched, and Ash picked her up. Mark and Olivia covered their retreat. Every puncture that riddled her body was filled with biofoam as they fled, weaving a staggered path through the thicket of pines - she still remembered them. She remembered the sky. <br/>There had been a dilapidated research facility complex nearby that had been tagged as their rendezvous point, and tucked inside was their waiting Turaco. <br/>The buildings there were crumbled monoliths ringed by rusting chainlink fencing. <br/>Condensed waves of fire had hounded them even after they'd gotten airborne - Mark fired back with the 50 caliber chain gun fixed against the open gunner's door; he hadn't been harnessed in...that seemed familiar. Olivia was in the cockpit with the pilot. <br/>The report read that Ash was monitoring and reassessing her condition...she remembered he'd been talking to her. </p><p>The rest she learned from Ferrin. Back on board the relative safety of the cruiser, she was under bright lights and cold steel immediately. Her helmet had to be cut away from her head. <br/>When the doctor had mentioned that detail, a sudden flashbulb memory exploded into her mind. The shock still lingered now...</p><p>...the helmet had been discarded on the floor...with a banging thump.   </p><p>That first trip under the knife had bought her flash cloned organs to replace those damaged in favor of tedious and time consuming repairs. Three and half liters of blood rapidly fed through large bore lines. Ferrin, a skilled general surgeon to be sure, had received emboldened, remote, guidance from a UNSC Neurosurgeon via holocomm - desperate to drain pressure, clear clots, and save brain tissue; the depressed section of skull had been cut away and substituted with a carbon fiber plate.<br/>She reached up with her left hand to run her fingers along the shaved stubble of her scalp, meeting the slightly sticky metallic edges of the staples set there; they marched along in a neat curving row.  </p><p>The follow up procedure cleared the atomized, amber-gold, visor fragments from her eyes. </p><p>Amber-gold.<br/>Like the sky. </p><p> </p><p>Closing her eyes...she exhaled. </p><p> </p><p>-----</p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. I Promise</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She was hopelessly tired, but weak efforts battling the deep aches plaguing her low back and hips did nothing to help her plight. Unable to properly turn, and limited to awkward shuffling movements that she swore bit worse than the bullets, she was damned to suffering in stagnant indignation. It wasn't enough she couldn't properly use a restroom, or clean herself...a bitter smile split her chapped lips, </p><p>"Gifts that just keep giving. Hopefully the dish in my skull winds up deactivating every key card I touch for the rest of my life too.", sparing a sarcastic laugh for herself. The room returned only silence, and she frowned...feeling foolish, and needing a distraction. </p><p>Turning to her left, she noticed that Ash had left her commpad on the blankets at her side. She stared at the device for several beats, as though waiting for the cold tablet to make the first move. <br/>Her growing interest was enduring however, and the notion of sleep was cast aside as she reached for the pad. Bundling the sheets into a ramp on her left chest, she propped the screen up, and activated it, quickly accessing her sealed communiques. The monitor at her side was silenced for her comfort, but the figure beneath the small heart shaped icon steadily began to rise. <br/>There were few messages, and none dated later than the day of her injury - surprising, actually, for Osman to come across so considerate...more than likely just a gross coincidence. </p><p>She scrolled through the unread tabs, reviewing only the sender's moniker and checking for any critical priority tags - none. She didn't open any of them. <br/>Veta hadn't been interested in reviewing reports, or collating data; she'd had different hopes when logging in, and found her disappointment measurable. She exhaled...realizing only then that she'd been holding her breath. She<em> had</em> hoped...</p><p>Closing out the new messages and flipping to an encrypted archive folder, a gentle smile reached her eyes, and she tapped the top message - a simple, bland, low priority tab: </p><p><em>You stay safe as well. I know I'd miss you if you didn't.</em>     </p><p> </p><p>He'd sent it to her after she and the Ferrets had left the Silent Joe. A simple, sweet, variation of the very same thing she'd said to him before she'd left the Infirmary. <br/>The variation was important. </p><p>Closing out her account, the screen went dark, and she lay the commpad face down on her chest. Her eyes closed; the smile still across her lips. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I know I'd miss you if you didn't.</em>
</p><p>He'd <strong>know</strong>. </p><p><br/>As though it hadn't been an agonizing problem earlier...she found the sleep she so dearly sought.  </p><p>-----</p><p>When the Gammas shouldered their way back into her room that morning, they were moving in a condensed huddle, each with a hand held flat, palm down, between them - a loud slap rang out, and Mark, who'd entered backwards, pumped a victorious fist in the air, turning to face her with a smile wide enough to reveal a full row of teeth - Ash's bemoaned groaning fell to the wayside of Olivia's laughter, as the brunette shook out his reddened hand.<br/>Claiming his reward, Mark dropped into the chair at her bedside, his genuine grin unfaltering and seeming to grow as his siblings joined him next to her.<br/>All competition between them dissolved in an instant as they excitedly revealed their stolen goods to her - the little weasels had lifted chocolate bars from the commissary. </p><p>For their efforts, they earned a rattle of hoarse laughter from her; ignoring the rising burn it left in her chest. She needed them to know she was okay - they always made it easier by just being themselves. Part of her briefly wondered who was handling their oversight while she was put up in the ward, but the thought went forgotten in an instant. Who really could? </p><p>Olivia had both palms flat on the mattress, and leaned toward her, </p><p>"It's good to see you laugh again!"</p><p>"The baddest Mom a litter of Spartans could hope to have, 'O." <br/>Mark was still smiling at her. Ash nodded emphatically. </p><p>Another dusty laugh. </p><p>She watched as Mark palmed a roll of IV tape from a small steel bedside table, and casually tossed it to Ash. The boys set into a strange pantomime, and she watched as Ash lobbed the tape roll underhanded, in a lazy curve toward Mark, who quickly caught it, throwing it over Ash's shoulder. Ash raised a fist and pretended to punch Mark in the face. All a little over exaggerated, played out in half-time, and set to the dramatic track of sound effects made with their mouths.<br/>The Gammas enthusiasm was spilling over, and she continued to smile and watch, albeit wildly confused by their strange play-act. </p><p>"What <em>was</em> that?", raising her eyebrows and offering the slightest tilt of her head.</p><p>When all three whipped on her, shouting, <br/>"<strong>YOU</strong>", her confusion deepened. </p><p>Before giving her a chance to continue questioning them, the three went into an excited round-robin recounting of how she'd snatched a primed grenade straight out of the air, and thrown it back into congested Keeper forces. <br/><em>Just</em> before the Jiralhanae and human fanatics had descended on her.</p><p>"I can't wait to tell the Ell-Tee about how you got decked by a Jiralhanae, and took it like a champ!"</p><p>"You've got another thing in common now too - you've both totally pissed off Baby Dragon by wrecking an entire suit of outrageously expensive armor without offering the decency of dying in it."</p><p>"He's got you beat by one on that, but...don't go trying to catch up, okay?" </p><p>Heat was rushing to her face like a furnace, but she couldn't stop staring at the three muscular brats as though they were a rogue gaggle of grade-schoolers who just collectively said their first 'bad word' together and couldn't stop riding the high. <br/>While Olivia and Mark continued their impish heckling, facing one another, ramping each other up, Ash shot her a sideways look, and she met his eyes. <br/>Hidden behind hooded lashes, he angled a soft and knowing smile towards her...quietly revealing an understanding that felt almost a little too mature, but the gamble paid out, and she surrendered, the edge of her lips lifting almost imperceptibly. As her left arm lay down on the mattress, there came the smallest of tugs on her pinky finger - glancing down, he'd hooked his own in her's. </p><p><em>I promise.</em> <br/>His eyes curving in that happy little almond curve. </p><p>-----</p><p>Veta had once hunted monsters on Gao - now she hunts them across entire star systems. <br/>Unrelenting, she and her Ferrets will leave their marks no dominion. <br/>Both paths had demanded blood, but only <em>this</em> path had promised it. <br/>The way ahead would be fraught with questions - answers gripped in teeth and fists and fire. </p><p>Her mortality would continuously be a tenuous notion -  her <strong>morality</strong> endlessly under fire. <br/>She will not give either quarter when against the threat of death.   </p><p>To her credit - this was the first time she'd ever caught a bullet. </p><p> </p><p>Overachieving by collecting two more and a skull fracture, well... that was just the Veta way.  </p><p>-----</p>
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